[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival review of Inconceivable, Alice Cutler’s deeply moving and unexpectedly funny solo show about infertility, pregnancy loss, and healing.
Solo shows are usually very personal. They talk about subjects that all of us are familiar with, death, love, abuse, forgiveness. But sometimes they go very deep, into the realm of journeys of pain so profound that they change us a little just by being a witness to them.
Inconceivable is a play that did exactly that for me. I sat in the theatre, surrounded by mostly total strangers and I was flooded with feelings. Compassion, recognition, laughter and a deep connection to the subject.
“Moving beyond words, empowering, meaningful, and profoundly funny, Inconceivable is a gift of a show.”
Inconceivable, just in case you haven’t guessed yet, is about a woman who wanted a baby so much that she and her partner tried just about everything to have one. A late bloomer in the baby-making game, Alice Cutler assumed, as we all do, that her mission up to that point was to not get pregnant. Then she fell in love and all she needed to complete her life was what she had been successfully avoiding for decades.
But what seemed like the most natural thing in the world was not happening, and after years of stress and treatments and tests and heartache, it finally did. She was pregnant and filled with relief and happiness. But as we all know, those of us who have been through this, getting pregnant is only part of the story. Staying pregnant to term can be the hardest thing of all. For Alice’s body and the chemistry of life, it was too much, and after all the effort and the joy, it was not to be, and a termination was necessary.
I, like so many many women, have been exactly where Alice was. Joy turning to horror and heartache and despair. Walking the path, even one I had walked twice before with positive outcomes so easily, was not to be for me either. So this funny and heartbreaking show was shockingly close to my own experiences. There is infertility and then there is unviable. Alice experienced both, and while I watched this brave and beautiful woman tell her story with humor and openness, I could feel the community of mostly women in the audience combine their empathy and their understanding and send it back to her in waves of love. At least that is what I felt sitting in my plastic chair in the darkness.
I’m not sure of the statistics. But so many women have been through this. Much more than anyone, even the women themselves could imagine. I’ve had two kids, effortlessly and then loss after loss with no rhyme or reason.
Pain is a difficult thing to share at the best of times, but choosing to channel it into a solo play is brave to say the least.
In last year’s Solofest, Alice won the best newcomer prize for Inconceivable, and I can understand why. She is a phenomenal storyteller. A gifted writer, and as she unfolds her story, her audience travels through every single emotion possible right along with her. I hope that in sharing her story with us she has found some solace. Community can help so much with the trauma of this kind of loss. Just knowing you are not alone in this experience can help to heal many many feelings of guilt and a multitude of others. For those of us in this sad club, having someone so talented and courageous as Alice giving not only a voice to this but some love and laughter is more healing than I have words for.
Inconceivable is a brilliant and purposeful outpouring of the mixture of emotions and challenges gone through by couples who have been where Alice and her partner have been. It is a gift of a show. Moving beyond words, empowering, meaningful and profoundly funny, Alice Cutler opens her heart and gives us something none of us knew we even needed still. A place to sit with our experience and not be alone.